Kate’s voice cut through him like an air horn. “Pete, answer me!”
The tortured emotions that had been rising steadily throughout the day came together in a flash-point burst. “I’ll tell you what’s happening, dammit!” Pete said forcefully. “I’m going to save my son’s life — right now!”
Yanking at the handle, he threw his bulk against the door. For a long moment, it resisted his pressure, then cracked open, admitting a deluge of liquid radiation.
“Uh, oh — what’s that noise I’m hearing?” Kate’s voice was steady again.
Snatching the phone and the paint mask from the passenger seat, he held them high as he wiggled his way out of the car. For just a moment, he considered how absurd it was to wear the mask when everything else would become steeped with irradiated water. This bit of understandable logic, however, didn’t prevent him from bringing it along anyway.
Once outside, his jeans instantly turned about ten shades darker, and the chill that spread through his crotch gave him a wicked case of the tremors.
“That’s water, darling. Very nasty water.”
“Pete, are you crazy?!”
“Don’t worry. I’m going to be all right.”
He slipped the mask on. The water in the “puddle” was about even with his hips; he began gliding through it like a runner in slow motion.
“I’m going to get him, Kate!” he said through the mask, hearing how it muffled his voice. He was grinning broadly; the smile of a madman who has reached a level of comfort with his neuroses.
“I know I can count on you, honey. But don’t be dumb! Get out of the rain!”
“What am I supposed to do, just sit there? The bleeding car stopped working!”
“Then how are you going to bring Mark and Sharon to the hospital?”
The road beneath his submerged feet was beginning to rise again, and Prince Field would come into view when he reached the peak. I’ll be able to wash all of this off, he told himself. I’ll be fine.
“I have a plan for that, too,” he said, nodding. “There are lots of houses around, and I’m sure that some of them are occupied. One of our fellow citizens is going to give us a ride whether they like it or not. At the very least, they’ll be loaning me their vehicle for a little while.”
“What if they don’t? What if you can’t find anyone?”
“I’ll find someone.”
“Pete, I can still call Sarah. I’m sure she can do something.”
“It’s okay, Katie, I can do this. Just let me take—”
The span of time between the moment when his foot hooked the lip of the pothole and when his face hit the water was incredibly brief. It wasn’t the impact that made him lose his grip on the phone but rather the surprise. When the device went under, the connection to Pete’s headset, and thus to his wife, was instantly severed.
All four limbs flailed as he struggled to right himself. The mask twisted out of its base position, causing him to swallow what seemed like a gallon of rainwater. Then he hacked it back out along with a cloud of vomit.
When his head finally broke the surface, Pete released a scream that could’ve been heard in deep space. Then he spat repeatedly and vomited for the second time. The mask floated nearby, doing a graceful dipsy-doodle a few inches down. He ignored it and groped for the phone instead, but it was nowhere to be found.
All emotions fled his body except for a broiling, incandescent rage. Baring his teeth like a predator, he broke into a splashing run that had him out of the floodwaters and onto solid ground in seconds. Then the dizziness — powerful and unyielding — took over, and the darkness began closing in.
He collapsed less than twenty feet from the road’s peak.
Kate dialed Sarah Redmond’s number.
24
A sound cut through the inky, swirling blackness. It was a light and gentle sound, one that Emilio associated with happiness even though he couldn’t quite register it. He felt as if his brain had broken into four or five separate pieces; frontal lobe over here, parietal lobe over there, temporal lobe somewhere else. There was some remaining connection between them, but it was staticky and unreliable. The sound came again, sweet and promising.
Bing!
He knew that sound. He knew what it meant. He was sure of that. It meant… something. What? Why does it matter to me?
He was swimming now. No, spinning. No… floating.
Floating?
That wasn’t it, either. But it was close. He felt unhinged, unanchored from himself and from reality. And also—
Something’s wrong. Something’s very wrong.
Emilio tried to open his eyes. The lids felt like cast iron pivoting on rusted hinges. He managed to move them a little, but they shut again immediately, as if they didn’t want to be opened.
He forced them up once more, and at the same time became acutely aware of his breathing. It was as if opening his eyes had restarted his lungs. The darkness around him began to take on a dimness, like the dusky quality of the sky at the end of a long summer day. A weariness, as if all the world’s light has become too exhausted to go on.
Where am I?
He heard another sound, something rough and unsettling, like sandpaper being pushed slowly over old wood.
Breathing. It’s me, breathing.
That didn’t make sense. He sounded like someone in the waning years of a life marred by hard drinking and cigarettes and maybe some narcotics thrown in here and there. Someone who never exercised, and spent years painting cars in an auto-body shop or installing asbestos insulation back in the old days when real men didn’t wear protective gear.
He tried drawing in a lungful of air and the resulting pain in his chest was beyond belief. He jerked into a fetal position; the swirling sensation returned with such force that he was certain he was going to pass out. He decided to lay still for a few moments, taking only short, halting breaths and attempting to organize his thoughts. This second task was particularly difficult. They were like fireflies, drawing restless glow-lines in the darkness but impossible to collect and coordinate.
What’s wrong with me?
The happy sound came again.
Bing!
He knew he had to respond to it. It was an important sound. It meant something.
He needed to appraise his surroundings, he decided. He managed to open his eyes again, and keep them open this time. But, just as before, nothing was visible. Wherever he was, there were no lights on.
Keep your eyes open. Let them adjust.
He waited until, finally, shapes began to emerge from the gloom. Lines running up and down, lines running left to right. Some were fat, some thin. None seemed to add up to anything, except that there was a checkerboard hovering up high.
A checkerboard?
A grid pattern. Dark lines, light squares.
The rest of his body began to wake. There was pain everywhere, strong enough that he wished he could stop it as easily as closing his eyes had cut off his sight. His head felt like a rock with cracks running all through it, as if one light tap from a mallet would cause it to crumble into a thousand pieces. A rhythmic throb was pounding away, steady in time but not in volume; some of the more emphatic pulses made him twitch and tremble. Please make it stop, oh, God, please.